Cold Wars 2019

I attended Cold Wars this past weekend, another good time.  On Friday night, I ran The Dying of the Light, a Late Roman game using the Lion Rampant rules, that I had run previously at Fall In.  I think it went well again.  The Roman riparensis troops were not able to replicate the incredible stand that they had at Fall In - although they put up a tough fight, they were ultimately wiped out.

The various Goths and Gepids were able to wreak some havoc.  Interestingly, there was far more inter-barbarian conflict and diplomacy this time around.  As with the game at Fall In, there were a number of "NPC encounters," all played by Zeb Cook, including an officious bishop, an irate cow, and a traveling philosophy symposium, that contributed to the players travails.  The Slavs, after attacking a church and facing the determined opposition of irate monks decided to convert to Christianity and worked out a land-for-peace deal with the Roman Imperial Pretender.  The Huns were also bought off by the Loyalist Roman commander who remained behind walls of the city. 

The intra-Roman conflict was settled at the end of the game, when the Pretender used the remnants of the monks to trick their way into the city, bringing a plague cart along.  This gave the Pretender's troops access  and after a few turns of shoving, the issue was decided by a personal duel between the Pretender, played by Howard Whitehouse, and the Loyalist. It came down to a single hit margin but the Loyalist was killed.  Hail Domusalba Caesar!   It turned out to be a close score among most of the factions but the Hun King, played by Dale Zartman triumphed through a combination of ruthless pillage and even more ruthless tribute extraction.  We won an award in our time slot.

Saturday morning, I assisted Howard in a presentation to the new Game Design School.  The title of the presentation was "Mass Mayhem in Miniature: Running a gloriously entertaining convention game for vast numbers of complete strangers" in which we waxed poetical on the topic of how to run very large but very silly games at conventions.  The small but enthusiastic audience got to participate in brief sample game based on the conclusion of "Die Hard" called "It isn't Christmas until Hans Gruber Falls from Nakatomi Tower.  We didn't have the chance to take pictures at the presentation but here's some prep shots I took of the "table" for our sample game:

I also got the chance to play in the WWI aerial game that has been just about every HMGS convention that I can remember.  A simple yet very evocative rule system that captures the spirit of dogfights in the Great War.  

Saturday night, I played in a game Howard put on, using his newly-published, old-school-inspired rules, A Gentleman's War.  It utilized armies of ancient plastic flats that every boy who grew up in the '60s remembers from colorful ads in the back of comic books, such as these:

I remember as a 10-year old, being terribly disappointed when my set of 200 Romans arrived but played with them nonetheless.  With a good paint job, they are actually highly attractive figures:

It was a fun game with a determinedly "toy soldier" feel to it.

Aside from the games, there seemed to be a renewed energy in the whole convention.  The HMGS staff did an incredible job and have added to the experience.  This included a generous swag bag for Game Masters, pictured below, as well the free-beer-and-snacks reception at the Dealers' Hall Saturday afternoon.

The hotel formerly known as the Host, now the Wyndham Lancaster, has shown enormous improvements since Fall In.  The guest rooms as well as the gaming rooms appear to be completed and are light years ahead of where they were at Fall In.  The exteriors are still very much in construction mode.  As someone suggested, perhaps they are to give us the really immersive experience of walking through a battlefield.  Here's the scenic view of the pool area I had from my balcony.  However, the hotel really is coming along.

Finally, there were a number of great games being put on.  Here's some that caught my eye:

Some beautiful Sky Galleons of Mars ships in 28mm.

A very nice WWI trench board

An incredible Isandlwana game.

A VSF race in the NW Frontier

WWII Crete

Miles Ready's beautiful American Civil War board for his game on the sinking of the gunboat Tennessee.  This looked very fun and I'm sorry I missed it.